Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,288

the way his hands clenched at his side, the way he started to say something, then bit back the words. “Go to your King Brind’Amour, Luthien Bedwyr,” the Huegoth leader said. “Deliver to me within the month a formal treaty naming Greensparrow as our common enemy.” Asmund sat back, smiling wryly. “We have come for war, in the name of our God and by his will,” he proclaimed, a not-so-subtle reminder to Luthien that he was dealing with a fierce people here. “And so we shall fight. Deliver your treaty or our longships will lay waste to your eastern coast, as we had planned.”

Luthien wanted to respond to that challenge as well, to counter the threat with the promise of many Eriadoran warships to defend against the Huegoths. Wisely, he let it pass. “A month?” he asked skeptically. “I can hardly get to Caer MacDonald and back within the month. A week to Gybi—”

“Three days in a longship,” Asmund corrected.

“And ten days of hard riding,” Luthien added, trying not to think of the suffering the galley slaves would surely know in delivering him so far, so fast.

“I will send your brother to Gybi to serve as emissary,” Asmund conceded.

“Send him to Chalmbers, directly west of here,” Luthien asked. “A shorter ride on my return from Caer MacDonald.”

Asmund nodded. “A month, Luthien Bedwyr, and not a day more!”

Luthien was out of arguments.

With that, Asmund dismissed him and Ethan, who was charged with making the arrangements to deliver Luthien, Katerin, Oliver, and Brother Jamesis back to the Eriadoran mainland. The other fifty Eriadorans were to remain as prisoners, but Luthien did manage to get a promise that they would not be mistreated and would be released if and when the treaty was delivered.

Within the hour, the ship was ready to depart. Luthien’s three companions were on board, but the young Bedwyr lingered behind, needing a private moment with his brother.

Ethan seemed truly uncomfortable, embarrassed by the entire situation, of his choices and of his role in the Huegoth raids.

“I did not know,” he admitted. “I thought that all was as it had been, that Greensparrow still ruled in Eriador.”

“An apology?” Luthien asked.

“An explanation,” Ethan replied. “And nothing more. I do not control the actions of my Huegoth brothers. Far from it. They only tolerate me because I have shown skill and courage, and because of the tale of Garth Rogar.”

“I did go south to find you,” Luthien said.

Ethan nodded, and seemed appreciative of that fact. “But I never went to the south,” he replied. “Gahris commanded me to go to Port Charley, then to sail to Carlisle, where I would be given a rank of minor importance in the Avon army and sent to the Kingdom of Duree.”

“To battle beside the Gascon army in their war,” Luthien put in, for he knew well the tale.

Ethan nodded. “To battle, and likely to die, in that distant kingdom. But I would not accept that banishment and so chose one of my own instead.”

“With the Huegoths?” Luthien was incredulous.

Ethan shook his head and smiled. “Land’s End,” he corrected. “I went south from Bedwydrin for a while, then turned east, through MacDonald’s Swath. My destination became Gybi, where I paid handsomely for transport, in secret, to the Isle of Colonsey. I believed that I could live out my life quietly in Land’s End. They ask few questions there.”

“But the Huegoths came and crushed the settlement,” Luthien accused, and his voice turned grim as he spoke of the probable deaths of many Eriadorans.

Ethan shook his head and stopped his brother’s errant reasoning. “Land’s End remains intact to this day,” Ethan replied. “Not a single man or woman of that settlement has been injured or captured.”

“Then how?”

“My boat never got there, for it was swamped in a storm,” Ethan explained. “The Huegoths pulled me from the sea; chance alone put them in my path, and it was simple chance, simple good fortune, that the captain of the longship was Torin Rogar.”

Luthien rested back on his heels and spent a long moment digesting the story. “Good fortune for you,” he said. “And for Eriador, it would seem.”

“I am pleased by what you have told me of our Eriador,” Ethan said, unstrapping Blind-Striker and handing it back to Luthien. “And I am proud of you, Luthien Bedwyr. It is right that you should wear the sword of family Bedwyr.” Ethan’s face grew grim and uncompromising. “But understand that I am Huegoth now,” he said, “and not of your family. Deliver